Behemoth, full title Behemoth: the history of the causes of the civil wars of England, and of the counsels and artifices by which they were carried on from the year 1640 to the year 1660, also known as The Long Parliament, is a book written by Thomas Hobbes discussing the English Civil War. Published posthumously in 1681, it was written in 1668, but remained unpublished at the request of Charles II of England.
Background
Behemoth was written in 1668 as a follow-up to a previous and scandalous political work, Leviathan (1651). Leviathan is a representation of an ideal political world, and Behemoth has been considered to be a contrasting treatise on what happens when the very worst abuses of government come to pass. Hobbes applied his understanding of the science of human nature to explain why the English Civil War came to pass. He was able to do this because he "did not make an impassable gulf between his rational understanding on the one hand and the particular events which he witnessed, remembered, or heard about on the other". The book is written in the form of a discourse between two men. The first speaker, called only "A", is an eyewitness and possible insider to the events of the English Civil War. The second speaker, referred to as "B", is a student aiming to understand the breakdown in the government of England at that time.
Hobbes was refused permission by King Charles II to publish Behemoth. While the king recognised the correctness of the account of events and issues, he was concerned that the book would not be well received. Charles withheld his permission to publish, in the hope that Hobbes would avoid further scandal, and perhaps see his reputation as a thinker restored.
The manuscript for Behemoth was pirated and printed in unauthorised editions in Europe during the 1670s and in a letter to his friend John Aubrey, Hobbes stated his disappointment with this turn of events. An official edition was released, three years after Hobbes' death in 1679, by his literary agent William Crooke. According to Aloysius Martinich, "after its initial success the book was relatively unread and unstudied until there was a resurgence of interest in it in the last quarter of the twentieth century".
Behemoth is not entirely factual, accurate or literal in retelling of the events of the English Civil War but still has value for students of the history of thought or revolution. As Royce MacGillivray puts it:
Hobbes instead is drawing on his memories of the events and on two other possible sources, both written by James Heath around 1663. These are A Brief Chronicle of all the Chief Actions and the expanded A Brief Chronicle of the Late Intestine Warr. It is possible they were simply used as prompts for Hobbes, already 80 years old when he wrote Behemoth. According to MacGillivray very little material from these sources found its way directly into the text.
The summation below is just that, a summation, and is only the most basic part of each section. No effort is made to correct any inconsistencies introduced into the discussion between the master and the student so that the information may be presented as it was written by Thomas Hobbes.
Preface: The Bookseller to the reader
The 1682 edition of the book begins with a note from William Crooke in answer to why he was publishing this edition. Hobbes had made Crooke the caretaker of his literary estate in July 1679. Crooke knew of the editions of Behemoth published in Europe and he reasoned that these editions did not show the work in the best possible light due to the many textual errors and omissions. It would therefore be best to publish an authorized edition to correct these errors and show the work as Hobbes wanted it to be read. Crooke had as his source a manuscript copy of the text given to him by Thomas Hobbes around 1670.
Part One: Behemoth, or the Epitome of the Civil Wars of England
This is the longest section of the book and roughly covers the period 1640–1642.
The dialogue opens with the student asking the master how it was that a monarch as strong as Charles I should ever have had to face a rebellion. The master relates that a growing opposition to the crown was promoted by seven factions, each of them for their own ends and not in concert, who stoked the fires of rebellion. These factions were: Papists, Presbyterians, Independents including other sects of religious faith, those who were corrupted by their reading of the Latin and Greek classics, centres of commerce and trade such as London, those with no means of support who saw the war as a way to profit, and the lack of understanding as to the important role played by the monarchy in society.